PJMedia

In a letter to Attorney Dave Yost on December 4, LaRose, a Republican, explained, "As a result of our review, my office has identified 277 individuals who registered to vote in Ohio and 77 individuals who cast a ballot in an Ohio election and who appear to be legally present, noncitizens."

The Secretary of State said the review "utilized a cross-matching of the voter rolls in the Statewide Voter Registration Database with the list of individuals who have Ohio driver licenses or state identification cards." He noted that while the state does not maintain a "comprehensive database" of non-citizens in Ohio, Bureau of Motor Vehicles records do indicate the citizenship status of individuals who apply for driver's licenses or state identification cards.

This sort of thing adds up. And if it doesn't influence election results, why are House Democrats protecting it?

I told you she's running.

It's up at the DOJ IG website. There's a press release and the full report. It's 476 pages.

UPDATE: Initial conclusions are that Horowitz identifies a lot of errors, mistakes, problems, procedures that were not followed, and so on, but fails to bring it home. It's a hefty black eye for the reputation of the FBI but doesn't really offer consequences other than suggesting a lot of performance reviews. It's not a whitewash, more like a greywash.

The ray of hope: Both US Attorney Durham and AG Barr have issued statements disagreeing with the report's conclusion that the investigation was adequately predicated. That seems to indicate we will be hearing more from them.

As for Horowitz himself, this report combined with the Clinton email report strongly suggests that Horowitz (an Obama appointee, remember) is playing a sacrificial defense game. He's admitting what he has to, doesn't have all the necessary information, and refusing to draw the obvious conclusions.

There's some evidence for it. This is one area of the Russia Hoax that we haven't seen fully explored and revealed yet; hopefully Barr and Durham will find enough information to legally (ie, with warrants) flip over this rock.

Andrew McCarthy

a conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that hacked the DNC email accounts. Regrettably, Trump has bought into this discredited notion, and he mentioned it to Zelensky during their discussion.

Unfortunately, as in this case, McCarthy doesn't always get it. There is no conspiracy theory that "Ukraine hacked the DNC email accounts" that Trump bought into. Here are the facts:

There is an argument that the DNC emails were leaked to Wikileaks by an insider rather than hacked. The likely candidate for the leaker is Seth Rich, a DNC staffer found murdered in DC after the publication of the emails. The only person who likely knows, Wikileaks founder Assange, has said nothing to contradict this and some things that seem to support it, including offering a reward for information leading to Rich's murderer. There is strong evidence that the emails were leaked (copied to a local USB device) rather than hacked (and transferred over the internet).

The involvement of Seth Rich is speculation. The conclusion that the server was hacked comes entirely from Crowdstrike (no one else has examined the server) and is forensically weak. Crowdstrike has a history of forensically mis-attributing things to Russian hackers, and Hillary Clinton was running an operation to tie Trump to Russians and election interference. That's a strong motive for misrepresenting the source of the emails, and preventing examination of the evidence (ie, the server) by neutral parties.

The Ukraine angle also comes from Crowdstrike, which has connections to the Ukraine and may have physical possession of the "hacked" server. Examination of the server would probably (if the evidence has not been destroyed at this point) prove or disprove the hack versus leak theory. Given that companies' links to the Ukraine, it is not unreasonable for Trump to ask Ukraine for help investigating Crowdstrike's involvement in the 2016 elections and possession of evidence related to the DNC hack.

That angle is not proven, but it's not a conspiracy theory either, and asking for evidence to determine the truth is not a characteristic of conspiracy theorists.

Reviewed here, available here.

According to reports in the Daily Mail. At least it was after William Clinton left the White House, but Hillary was still in public office or running for it during much of that time.

The setup, as described, reminds me of HBO's Westworld -- including the potential to use information or photos obtained there for blackmail.

That said, we're not talking eyewitness testimony here. It's at least one step removed. Since the Clintons are known Epstein associates, it's plausible enough.

Daily Wire

George Nader, a convicted pedophile that special counsel Robert Mueller used in his Russia investigation, was indicted on Tuesday for allegedly concealing millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“The indictment noted that political committees that received funding unwittingly submitted false disclosure reports and were presumably victims of the plot,” The Washington Post reported. “Still, Clinton apparently attended numerous events, including small gatherings, with Nader, who on July 19, 2016, messaged the foreign official a photograph of him with Candidate 1’s spouse — an apparent reference to Bill Clinton — at Khawaja’s home.”

This makes anything related to Nader's claims against Trump look like a setup to benefit Hillary. And he was certainly excited to get personal access.

Louder with Crouder

Here’s an odd one. Banker Thomas Bowers, who worked for a bank that managed Jeffrey Epstein’s funds, was recently found dead from an apparent suicide which, according to the Los Angeles Coroner’s Report, was via hanging. He was 55 years old. Weirder is that those outlets reporting on the banker’s death seem adamant to tie the banker and Deutsche Bank to Donald Trump. Not Jeffrey Epstein.

I was skeptical about this story at first, but Crouder has put together the links to substantiate many of the points.

Also, Epstein's butler has died and the location of a "black book" detailing Epstein's contacts with underage girls he claimed to have is unknown as a result.

People with information that implicates Hillary Clinton do seem to die a lot.

Breitbart

Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Sunday told a Hispanic worker in South Carolina that illegal immigrants would have access to government-funded health care if he was elected president.

It's particularly insulting to make these promises to a foreign citizen in a foreign language, as it makes the deception element particularly blatant.

He tweeted his motives.

Some of his fellow students are unaccounted for.

Obviously, that means very likely Muslim. Which makes the murders he committed likely terrorism. Shooting details. He was also in aviation school as a member of the Saudi military.

You would think they could vet the people they send us for training better than this.

UPDATE: Six more Saudis arrested for filming the attack. This is starting to look like a bit more than a "lone wolf".

Accidentally?

Fox News

A former police officer made a bold proclamation during a congressional hearing Wednesday regarding a proposed assault-weapons ban: she would not comply.

Dianna Muller, who served in the Tulsa Police Department for 22 years and is the founder of gun advocacy group The DC Project, was among the witnesses at the House Judiciary Committee hearing. The session on an otherwise contentious issue flew largely under the radar amid the Trump-Ukraine controversy and Democrats' impeachment push. But reflecting the gun control divide in the country -- amid a spate of deadly mass shootings that prompted renewed calls for strict laws -- Muller said that such a ban would force lawful gun owners to either give up their arms or become criminals.

"Please don't legislate the 150 million people just like me into being criminals. It has happened. You've already done it," Muller said, referring to the Trump administration's ban on bump stocks, the devices that use a semi-automatic weapon's recoil to make it rapidly fire like an automatic. "I was a bump stock owner, and I had to make a decision: do I become a felon, or do I comply?"

Should the government pass an assault-weapons ban, Muller declared, "I will not comply."

For all of the leftist gun control fetishists who love to fantasize about getting their jackboots on and stomping all over the People, here's a wakeup call. The police won't go along with your gun confiscation schemes. At least, not universally.

Congresswoman Alexandria Occasional-Cortex misrepresents heat plumes as toxic fracking emissions.

Daily Caller

The Department of Homeland Security is proposing a rule that would allow the government to use facial recognition data to identify everyone traveling to and from the country, including U.S. citizens.

Non-citizens traveling through U.S. airports have been required to get their fingerprints scanned and have their picture taken since the mid-noughties. American citizens have enjoyed the choice of opting out of this requirement. However, in a recent regulatory filing, DHS is pushing to require all international travelers — including U.S. citizens — have their photograph taken.

Before you blame Trump, note the "required by statute" part. I still don't like it, but they already have your picture. I just don't see it doing enough good to outweigh the inevitable false positives.

(They give a 99% match rate, which sounds good, but that's only checking the much smaller pool of non-citizens; if a million US citizens get checked that's 10,000 mismatches even assuming the error rate holds up after you increase the candidate pool of matches dramatically).

The IRS simply cannot be trusted to make decisions based on content.

This one is on the practical side and might reach moderates who support "universal background checks": the FBI is already failing to complete hundreds of thousands of background checks on gun sales. They just can't keep up with the load from lawful gun owners buying guns at dealers. Not only does this not lead to hundreds of thousands of killings a year, how could they possibly keep up with the additional millions of law abiding gun sales that legally do not go through an FFL?

They can't, obviously. At least not with the existing system.

Perfect!

Meaning in History

Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian born Cambridge historian who was smeared by the very creepy Stefan Halper with regard to Michael Flynn, has two Twitter threads up that provide extensive detail that strongly indicates that Halper was feeding "information" to Steele. Lokhova also illustrates that Halper's reporting was essentially laundered through Steele, almost certainly to make it appear that information was being provided by the former MI6 officer rather than by a CIA/FBI asset who was targeting the Trump campaign and Trump associates before the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was opened. I want to highlight just a few of Lokhova's points from her detail rich threads.

Her information and details suggest Halper played a central role -- and was paid for it with tax dollars via the Office of Net Assessment. The CIA was likely behind Halper's involvement, seeking to convince the FBI to open an investigation that could be used to keep surveillance on Trump active after the NSA's access got shut down. Steele's claimed Russian sources may well have been filtered through Halper at best -- and just made up by Halper or others at worst.

Meaning In History

Schiff in new impeachment report seems to spend more time investigating a journalist--ex-asst. AP bureau chief John Solomon--than Trump, inclg exposing Solomon's phone records & smearing him as "author of articles promoting debunked conspiracy theories about the Bidens"

As part of his "impeachment inquiry," Schiff investigated not just President Trump but his own committee vice chairman GOP Rep. Devin Nunes and Nunes' committee aide Derek Harvey, and even obtained Nunes' and Harvey's phone call records

Over at Meaning In History, they are reading the Schiff report. Among many other bits of horror, the report indicates that Schiff has been obtaining the phone records of his own committee members (specifically Congressman Devin Nunes and aides), the personal attorney to the President Rudy Giuliani, and journalists (specifically John Solomon).

This strikes me as hugely significant. Once more the Democrats are spying on their political opponents for political purposes, and they are doing it brazenly. Either they are in a desperate panic over what is about to come out about SpyGate, or... they have been doing this all along, and somehow it never got exposed previously. Or perhaps both.

Of Arms and the Law points us to the transcript of oral arguments in an important 2nd Amendment case at the Supreme Court. If you don't want to read the transcript directly, here's an article about the case., and another describing the important points from the arguments.

The even briefer summary: New York laws make it effectively illegal to transport firearms -- even legally owned and licensed under New York laws -- outside of the home. There are narrow exceptions for going directly to and from a range, and if you have the political pull you can in theory get a permit to carry with fewer restrictions.

I haven't had a chance to read the transcript yet (it's 81 pages!) but early reports suggest Roberts may be going wobbly. That would be bad. On the other hand, Second Amendment Foundation reports cautious optimism.

Detroit News

Southfield City Clerk Sherikia L. Hawkins was charged Monday with six felony counts over "unauthorized and inaccurate" changes to absentee ballots in the November 2018 election.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson made a joint announcement of the charges in Detroit, calling it a "rare" case.

Allegations that Hawkins altered 193 absentee voter records came to light during the 14-day canvass following the election. Benson said the Oakland County Clerk’s Office reported with the Bureau of Elections "the potential for these irregularities and from there we began our investigation."

Hawkins, a Democrat who just a few months ago was honored by the state party with the Dingell/Levin Award at its Legacy Dinner in Detroit, could not be reached Monday...

So, there's your vote fraud. Six felonies, almost two hundred ballots (in a single election), and who knows how many more uncaught or uncharged?

But that's small potatoes. California is putting illegal aliens on the voter rolls.

I linked to the actual court filing earlier, but here are some specific details.

Some things to look for. The bottom line is that we're not going to see a lot of useful information outside the FISA itself. Horowitz has limited jurisdiction. Early reports suggest at least one criminal referral for making material changes that falsified evidence directly connected to that FISA. We may see more of that where the evidence is clear (eg, the 302s in the Flynn case). Mostly, though, Horowitz will be looking at what the FBI did with the information they received, whether the procedures were followed, whether and when those involved learned of potential problems with the information, or if there was clear evidence of misconduct in how it was handled.

In my opinion there is ample evidence already known to support multiple criminal referrals on those elements.

Horowitz will likely also deliver recommendations to improve policies and procedures around the FISA process.

It will be up to Durham to investigate (and hopefully prosecute) the role of the CIA and other intelligence agencies in presenting information to the FBI. Individuals like Stefan Halper and "Azra Turk" may be in a grey area where they may be FBI or CIA assets. Individuals like Mifsud are likely outside of Horowitz's reach, but Durham is known to be looking into that side of things.

In short: Horowitz is likely to focus on the FBI/DOJ side of things, leaving the origins of the matter and any NSA/CIA/State Dept involvement to Durham.

It's worth noting that in addition to the likely criminal referral around Clinesmith's alleged document edits, Lisa Page is starting a PR spin campaign prior to the report. That probably means she looks pretty bad in it.